Apple plans to ‘significantly’ grow AI investments and is open to M&A

Apple on Thursday signaled that it’s getting more serious about its plans to catch up in the AI race.

“We see AI as one of the most profound technologies of our lifetime. We are embedding it across our devices and platforms and across the company. We are also significantly growing our investments,” CEO Tim Cook said on the Q3 2025 earnings call with investors. “Apple has always been about taking the most advanced technologies and making them easy to use and accessible for everyone, and that’s at the heart of our AI strategy,” he added.

Cook expanded on those comments on the call, noting that Apple was “reallocating a fair number of people” to focus on AI.

“We have a great, great team and we’re putting all of our energy behind it,” he added.

AI investments are also driving increased CapEx spending, which was up year-to-date, the company said. However, Apple pointed out that it still employed a hybrid model where it relies on third parties to make capital investments, as well.

Ahead of its call, the company shared in an interview with CNBC that it’s open to M&A to accelerate its AI plans. The company told the outlet that it has already acquired seven companies this year. None was “huge” in terms of dollar amount, Cook said.

Apple has been criticized for having been caught off guard by the AI era; it has announced a number of AI features that it has, so far, failed to ship. The company was even accused of showing off an improved AI-powered version of Siri that wasn’t close to being ready to launch.

But Apple has defended itself by saying that it doesn’t need to rush — that launching the wrong features or the wrong products just to be first would be a mistake. That’s especially true if those products don’t work as promised.

So far, Apple says it has launched more than 20 Apple Intelligence features, including visual intelligence, cleanup, and writing tools.

Later this year, Apple plans to launch AI features like live translation and an AI-powered workout buddy, but the more personalized Siri’s improvements have been delayed to 2026. On the call with investors, Cook said the company was “making good progress” on the Siri update.

He also shared his thoughts on how AI may impact the iPhone business if new hardware were to emerge. For instance, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg earlier this week suggested that AI glasses would be the form factor for interacting with the new technology, and those without them would be left behind.

Cook, naturally, disagreed.

“It’s difficult to see a world where iPhone’s not living in it,” he said. “That doesn’t mean that we are not thinking about other things, as well, but I think that the [AI] devices are likely to be complementary devices, not substitutions.”

The exec declined to answer a question about what AI technologies it believed would ultimately believed would be commoditized, saying that would give away part of its strategy.

Apple delivered better-than-expected iPhone sales and record revenue in Q3, which saw its stock pop in after-hours trading.

This article was updated after initial publication with more details from the earnings call.